EF adding Item with children

I'm working on my pet project with MVC 5 and EF, and everytime I'm adding a parent with it children (I have the children ID's) I have to go to the database, because if I just create a new child with this ID it just inserts a child object. Is there anyway to avoid this?

This is part of my code: My classes:

public class FeatureType
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public virtual List<ItemType> ItemTypes { set; get; }
}

public class ItemType
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public virtual List<FeatureType> FeatureTypes { get; set; }
}

What I have to do to insert FeatureTypes, for a Array of ItemTypesID (of my view Model) I go to the database and populate a List of ItemTypes.

 private IEnumerable<ItemType> GetItemTypes()
 {
     return ItemTypes.Select(id => unitOfWork.ItemTypeRepository.GetById(id));
 }

Then I just assign this list to my Model property and insert. Can I avoid this trip to the database?

If you need anything else from my code ask for it and I can post it or you can check it all at https://github.com/tellez12/Classifieds/

UPDATE:

This is my ViewModel where I get the itemTypes and call my repository to do the insert :

public class FeatureTypeViewModel
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }

        public string Name { get; set; }

        public bool Required { get; set; }

        public string RequiredText { get; set; }

        public int ControlType { get; set; }

        public int Order { get; set; }

        public int SectionId { get; set; }

        public int[] ItemTypes { set; get; }

        public SelectList SectionSelect { get; set; }

        public SelectList ControllerTypeSelect { get; set; }

        public SelectList ItemTypeSelect { get; set; }

        private IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;

        public FeatureTypeViewModel()
        {
        }

        public FeatureTypeViewModel(FeatureType ft,IUnitOfWork myUnitOfWork)
        {
            SetRepositories( myUnitOfWork);

            Id = ft.Id;
            Name = ft.Name;
            Required = ft.Required;
            RequiredText = ft.RequiredText;
            ControlType = (int)ft.ControlType;
            Order = ft.Order;
            SectionId = ft.Section.Id;
            ItemTypes = getItemTypesId(ft.ItemTypes).ToArray();
            FillSelectList();
        }

        public void SetRepositories(IUnitOfWork myUnitOfWork)
        {
            unitOfWork = myUnitOfWork;

        }

        public FeatureTypeViewModel(IUnitOfWork myUnitOfWork)
        {
            SetRepositories( myUnitOfWork);
            FillSelectList();
        }

        private void FillSelectList()
        {
            SectionSelect = new SelectList(unitOfWork.SectionRepository.Get().ToList(), "Id", "Name", SectionId);
            ItemTypeSelect = new SelectList(unitOfWork.ItemTypeRepository.Get().ToList(), "Id", "Name", ItemTypes);

            var typeEnumSelect = from ControlType s in Enum.GetValues(typeof(ControlType))
                                 select new { ID = (int)s, Name = s.ToString() };
            ControllerTypeSelect = new SelectList(typeEnumSelect, "ID", "Name", ControlType);
        }

        private IEnumerable<int> getItemTypesId(IEnumerable<ItemType> list)
        {
            return list.Select(item => item.Id);
        }

        public FeatureType ToModel()
        {
            var ft = new FeatureType
                         {
                             Name = Name,
                             ControlType = (ControlType)ControlType,
                             Order = Order,
                             Required = Required,
                             RequiredText = RequiredText,
                             ItemTypes = GetItemTypes().ToList(),
                             Section = GetSection(),
                         };

            return ft;
        }

        private Section GetSection()
        {
            var section = unitOfWork.SectionRepository.GetById(SectionId);
            return section;
        }

        private IEnumerable<ItemType> GetItemTypes()
        {
            return ItemTypes.Select(id => unitOfWork.ItemTypeRepository.GetById(id));
        }
    }